The Wooster Geology Climate Change class spent a beautiful fall day in Stony Creek, Ohio coring beams in three structures of historical significance. They will determine the cut dates (calendar dates when the timber for the houses were felled) for the homeowners and then examine the tree-ring data that results to help reconstruct drought for the region. The class will write a report for the homeowner as part of the project. The Wooster tree-ring lab has dated over 50 buildings. Many of the reports are archived here.
Willy coring a hand hewn beam with an increment borer in the basement of one of the structures.
Dan cores into the white oak beam as Meredith keeps the utilities at bay.
Julia identifies the outer (bark year) rings of a large oak beam and sets the spoon to extract the core.
Meredith and Haley team up to extract another core from a structure.
Zach shows how the 5 mm core is mounted in a slotted core mount.
Sarah glues the carefully oriented core into the mount.
Orienting the core properly is crucial for the next step of sanding the surface.
The group should be able to determine when the timber was cut to build this restored structure. Sometime in early November the analyses should be completed.
Some extracurricular coring of young white pines in the area.
